Roberto Madrazo

Roberto Madrazo

Roberto Madrazo Pintado (born July 30, 1952) is a Mexican politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He was the candidate of the alliance between his party and the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) in the 2006 Mexican presidential election.

Madrazo was born in Villahermosa, Tabasco to Carlos A. Madrazo and Graciela Pintado Jiménez. His father was a reformist politician at a time when the PRI was the only viable party. Both of his parents died in a plane crash when he was sixteen. Although his father came from humble roots, his prestige allowed Roberto to become one of Mexico's elite. He studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and urbanism at the University of California at Los Angeles, and headed the PRI Youth.

Between 1976 and 1988, he represented Tabasco in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. He served as governor of Tabasco from 1994–2000 and president of the PRI from 2002–2005. Madrazo is mainly credited for bringing cohesion to a disjointed PRI after it historically lost the 2000 presidential election. Madrazo was able to wrestle control of the PRI by negotiating deals with different power groups within the PRI and by neutralizing political adversaries within the party.

He is married to Isabel de la Parra Trillo.